


Snakes In The Mansion

by LilianaSnow



Series: Pen [3]
Category: X-Men (Movieverse)
Genre: Beautiful, Comfort, Comfort No Hurt, Couch Cuddles, Fluff, Gentle Kissing, Gentleness, Healthy Relationships, Lizards, M/M, Mpreg, No Sex, No Smut, Original Character(s), Past Abuse, Past Sexual Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Snakes, Stress Relief, Sweet, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-09-17 16:10:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16977792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LilianaSnow/pseuds/LilianaSnow
Summary: Who knew reptiles could be so fluffy?





	Snakes In The Mansion

Peter sank onto the couch, sighing softly and curling up. His stomach was slightly swollen and he had cried over dropping a spoon. He placed a hand on the slight swell of his stomach and lay his head against the couch.

"Hey, baby, you okay?" Ben asked softly, sitting down next to him and wrapped an arm around him. "Do you need anything?"

"I dropped a spoon," he sniffled, wiping his eye. He looked up at Ben. "I can't stop crying. I can't understand it."

Ben nodded softly, pulling him closer and cuddling him. Peter cuddled up to him. He nuzzled into Ben's chest, wrapping his arms around him and letting himself lean against him.

"I had a nightmare last night, about Luke," he mumbled into his fiancé's chest. "He came back and beat me until I had a miscarriage."

"Oh, baby," Ben whispered softly. He rubbed his back softly. "Can I check the dream?"

Peter nodded and touched Ben's hand, and Ben relaxed until he felt the fears flow free. Peter was worried about everything from another miscarriage to death to Luke somehow escaping.

"Baby, it's okay," Ben told him, moving his hand to rub Peter's back. He took full advantage of Peter's heightened metabolism by touching him skin to skin as often as possible. One of Ben's less desirable qualities was his cold blood. He needed to be kept warm during the winter just as much as his snakes, and Peter was a human furnace. He turned off the fear-reading and started speaking quietly. "You have me here, and Hank, and you won't lose this baby. You're doing so good at taking care of him or her. And you're making sure you eat enough for both of you. And you'll make it through the birth too, you're strong and you're doing just perfect. And Luke'll never escape, he'll never hurt you again. Not on my watch,  _meine Libelle._ You're safe here."

Peter cuddled closer and sniffled into his chest. Ben hummed softly and pulled him onto his lap, then lay so they were taking up all of the couch. With his incredibly versatile tail, he pulled a blanket over his fiancé. He sang gently in German, some stupidly repetitive song that Peter was always listening to the English version of. Peter nuzzled up under Ben's chin and curled himself around his slight baby bump. Ben, in turn, curled around him.

"Thank you, Ben," Peter whispered softly. "I know it's not fun, having to take care of me-"

"Hush, baby. I love you and I love taking care of you and our child."

"There's no payoff for you..."

"I get to have a happy baby, and a happy fiancé and you're warm. I need your cuddles. I say that's plenty of payoff that I don't even need." He smiled and kissed his head.

Peter blushed softly and snuggled closer.

* * *

A few days later, Peter was in his and Ben's room at the mansion. Ben had moved in for the winter because he was terrified of the cold and there was an opening for a psychology professor- which Ben was great at.

"I'm so booorrrrrreeedddddd."

"Do you want to go see a movie?" he asked, praying not to have the answer 'yes.' He didn't want to have to set himself on fire again.

"No. I want something fun to do- can I play with your snake?" Peter asked, glancing over at an albino snake. Despite the strangeness of the way it felt, Peter genuinely liked that snake. She was tiny and she enjoyed sitting on his hand, and she liked to be played with.

"Sure." Ben went to his little ecosystems of snake racks and terrariums. He brought out the little albino creature and offered her to his lover.

Peter gently took the snake- whose name was Snow- and held her close. Snow wasn't very big, and she had befriended geckos and bearded dragons in her area. They generally were separated but the behaved well when let out, so Ben let them out of their racks relatively often.

Peter watched Snow move. He felt her coiling around his wrist and smiled.

"She's beautiful, Ben."

"Not as gorgeous as the guy holding her,  _meine Libelle._ I love them both."

Peter blushed and smiled up at him, pulling her closer to his chest and humming. "Can I feed her?"

"I thought you found their diets disgusting."

"They're disgusting but they're still cool..." Peter mumbled.

Ben smiled and brought him a small mouse. Ben prided himself on hunting the mice for his snakes himself. He only bought mice once in a while, so bringing a field mouse wasn't uncommon.

Peter put the mouse in the tank and released the snake, who ate it in one gulp like always. "Can I feed the geckos too?"

Ben helped Peter feed his pets, smiling as he watched each of them snap up their food. The pregnant speedster leaned on his chest, and so Ben wrapped his arms around him.

"You know, you're the only one who doesn't find my love of reptiles strange."

"You're one of the few people I know who are okay with my body temperature."

"I like that you're hot. It never hurts to be warm, when you're befriending someone coldblooded like me."

"I like it when you have your snakes out and about. They're cool. And you get really calm."

"It's simpler with them,  _Schatz._ They don't care about as many things as we would. To them, life is life. Warm is warm, not being eaten is not being eaten. It's a type of purity I only ever experienced with children."

"Yeah... I guess it must feel strange to have hair and a tail."

"I'm supposed to be like you.To be warm and tailless. To have no scales."

"You're beautiful, Ben."

"So you say. As beautiful as my mutation is, it's something that only you and the people here and the reptiles understand. It's simple, really, don't hate and don't judge. But I appreciate it here."

Peter nodded softly. "You know, you're one of the few people who didn't judge me for my secondary mutation."

"Why would I do that? It's beautiful. You have a baby on the way, and you're safe and happy." He gently spun him and knelt to kiss his swelling stomach.

"Even when I'm fat?"

"You won't be fat, _Liebling._ You'll be round and you'll have a gorgeous life in your stomach."

Peter blushed.

* * *

Charles and Erik smiled happily as they watched Ben teach Peter how to slow dance. He was four months along, and his belly was noticeable through the white shirt he'd stolen from Ben. As he stepped, Ben was smiling encouragingly.

"You're doing fantastic,  _Schatz._ Truly," he whispered.  _"Ich habe den perfekten Liebhaber."_

"I have no idea what you said but I don't deserve it," Peter said softly, holding himself slightly too close for fear that he might get hurt.

"I simply said the truth," Ben told him, spinning him gently and pulling him close to his side. They stepped perfectly in time- Ben was dancing a bit faster than most slow dances, but Peter was going much slower than he normally did.

"Which is?"

"He said he had the most perfect lover, Peter," Erik told him. "I'd agree but Charles is mine, Ben."

Ben laughed. "Teachers are the worst, they're always correcting you. Peter,  _liebling,_ step with your left."

Peter laughed loudly, leaning on Ben. "Hypocrite."

Ben smiled and twirled him again. "You're right, I must be."

* * *

 "I'll tell him soon, Erik. But for now, let him be happy."


End file.
